Gentle Monsters
by Ahmerst
Summary: While on vacation at his family's cabin, Alfred can't help but notice a sudden chill in his room and that the window has somehow opened itself. It doesn't help that there's a monster crawling along his ceiling.  Human AU, Ivan as a vampire.
1. Chapter 1

Whenever Alfred watched scary movies, he had nightmares of things in his room. Dark things, masses that didn't quite have shape, like they were stuck between forms and too lazy to finish changing. They had eyes made of fire, smelled like brimstone and sulfur. Gravity seemed a trivial thing to them, something to be batted away as easily as a fly as they crawled along his ceiling.

He could deal with it though, because as they moved closer and Alfred's fear grew, turned into an ugly, cold lump in his chest, he would wake up. The only problem this time was was that things weren't going according to plan. This time the thing had a form, something human, and it smelled not of Hell but of the cold. The red eyes had instead been replaced with something more muted, a deep lavender that glowed instead of burned. It didn't crawl along so much as it flowed, like fog rolling along a frozen lake.

But worst of all, Alfred decided, as his heart fluttered fast and sweat beaded on his brow and he stared straight up at it, was that he wasn't waking up.

It was hard to blink with the thing in the room. Every time Alfred shut his eyes it seemed to move closer and closer until it was directly above his head. It moved like a spider in small, easy bursts. Alfred took to blinking one eye at a time. As he watched the thing, he tried to figure out when the dream had started.

He'd been all set and ready for bed, curled up cozy-like with two pillows under his head and half a dozen blankets piled on him. He'd hidden his magazines between his mattresses, warm and sated and sleepy. Sure he was in the middle of nowhere with a grouchy brother and no internet, but tomorrow they were going to head into town and the sooner he slept, the sooner tomorrow came.

That was when he noticed the chill, the tickling of cool air at his nose. His hair had been ruffled by a breeze, bangs falling into his face. The summer cabin was old, sure, but it was never drafty, and the insulation wasn't half bad. And Arthur was ever so strict about not turning the air conditioning on at night.

With a groggy huff Alfred had reached out for his glasses, fumbling them between clumsy fingers before he looked around, the room dimly lit by the light of the stars. Nothing looked to be out of place. His clothes were still strewn about, his luggage lying on the floor, full and waiting to be unpacked. The mobile of a solar system that hung from the ceiling spun gently, wobbling as a gust of wind blew through the open window.

That was it, Alfred decided. That was the start of the nightmare, because he never left his window open at night. That was like asking spiders to crawl into your mouth while you slept.

And as he stared at the window the thing came in, viscous and fluid and dark, and Alfred couldn't believe it. He'd been able to do nothing but stare and breathe and wonder what he was even looking at. He hadn't thought about rolling out of bed, of running from the room in a rush of adrenaline. He only thought of waking up, because that was how it was supposed to end.

When he realized this time was different, that this time there was no waking up before the attack, like a dream in which you fall and don't snap awake before the impact of the ground, that he decided he couldn't just lie around. He was seventeen and three-quarters, had a driver's permit, and sometimes he even drank beer. He could handle a stupid monster on his wall.

"Shoo," Alfred hissed. "Go on, get."

The thing stayed on the ceiling, though its form seemed to ebb, shrinking for a moment before it reverted to its original shape. A knot strung itself along in Alfred's throat, bobbing when he swallowed, tight and scratchy and constricting his words.

"I said beat it," Alfred said, but this time there was a wavering in his voice he couldn't suppress, and he was sure he saw a smile in the creature's eyes. "You don't even want to mess with me, I was on the wrestling team in seventh grade and I kicked major ass."

When the creature showed no sign of fear, no sign that Alfred's wrestling talents or shaky voice were any kind of deterrent, Alfred went to plan B. He hollered for Arthur. He'd barely opened his mouth to scream when the thing dropped.

It was like being instantly buried beneath an avalanche, the weight impossibly heavy. All the warmth in Alfred's body was leeched from him, replaced with nothing but a pulsing cold that sank into the marrow of his bones. He kept up his screaming, Arthur's name turning into a gibberish cry as Alfred found he no longer knew where his body ended and the creature's began.

But then as quickly as the creature was on him it was gone, Alfred's scream tapering off as his door flew open, the knob slamming back against the wall. Alfred lay as still as he could on the bed, fingers fisted in the sheets, eyes fixed into a wide, terrified stare as his chest heaved.

"Alfred. Alfred, what are you going on about in here?" Arthur said as he bolted to the bed. His hands found their way to Alfred's shoulders, gripping them tightly. "Were you having another one of your dreams? You're shaking like a leaf," he tutted softly.

"There was something on the ceiling," Alfred gasped out. "It got in through the window─ it opened the window."

"Shh," Arthur soothed as he turned on the bedside lamp. "Nothing is in here Alfred, it was a nightmare. The window─" Arthur's head turned for a moment before snapping back. "─ is not even open."

Alfred scrubbed a hand over his face, his skin slick with a clammy sweat. He didn't try arguing with Arthur, didn't try to tell him how cold it had been and how heavy it was. Nightmares were only a weight on the mind, but this one had been too physical, too real. But no matter how Alfred argued, Arthur would brush it off as he always had in the past.

Arthur sat quietly by as Alfred slowly settled himself, a certain sincerity and anxiousness in the green depths of his eyes. He always spoke with his eyes, not his words. He had a penchant for being blunt and obtuse, for having a sharp tongue and a quick wit that burned like acid even when he had the best of intentions. So Alfred didn't mind that Arthur said nothing, but instead watched him, patting his forearm from time to time.

"Why don't I make you a cuppa?" was all Arthur said when he did manage to speak. "It'll do your nerves good."

Alfred nodded, didn't bother telling Arthur he wasn't shaking from the fear, but the chill that lingered in his blood. Instead he scrabbled out from under the sheets, hands going to his glasses, playing nervously with the arms. He stood when Arthur did, worked up a courage that wasn't there and held his chin high.

"D'you mind if I sleep with you tonight?" Alfred asked, head turning to glance at the window. It was closed, just as Arthur had said.

"Of course, lad," Arthur said as he passed through the doorway.

Alfred watched him go before looking to the ceiling. He expected some kind of sign, a hint, a clue that it'd been more than a nightmare. There was nothing. Not a smudge or a scratch, a splotch of black or a hint of scent. It was Alfred's small**,** stupid room in their small, stupid cabin.

He did have to wonder though, as he made to follow Arthur, if the closet had been wide open when he'd gone to bed.

* * *

><p>AN:

-Part two will be up in a week or so! It's already done, but golly, I just like to tease. Awesome fanart for this fic was done by Green Tape and can be seen here: greentape(DOT)tumblr(DOT)com/post/7066986156/sorry-couldnt-help-myself-had-to-draw-some-fan

Thanks for reading a reviewing!


	2. Chapter 2

Arthur left for town without Alfred. He left a note stuck to the fridge, said that Alfred looked like he needed the rest and he'd be back in a few hours. He wrote down the emergency numbers for the neighbors, people that Alfred had never met, never seen. They were nothing but names in houses miles and miles down the road.

And they didn't know him. Alfred and his family hardly visited their cabin. It was a once a year thing, always in the early days of July. It was supposed to be a treat, a getaway from the hustle and bustle of the city life and a time to treat the kids.

But Alfred's parents weren't even around. They were with his twin Mattie, doing their happy family, birthday thing while Alfred died a slow death from boredom while Arthur embroidered and made tea and fussed so much he was better suited to being a mother than a brother. Not that Alfred held it against Mattie. It was just how things were. One year their parents celebrated with Mattie, and the next it was Alfred's turn.

Somewhere along the lines their parents had read that twins needed to feel like valid, separate people. They needed to be shown that they were more than their mirror image and loved for who they were. Alfred thought it was a whole not of new agey hooey. Pulling one of them away from the other didn't make their birthdays any more special or make them individuals, it just meant one of them baked in the sun with nothing to do while the other had a kick-ass time as Disneyland or Marine World.

Alfred wanted it to be his turn every year. Not because he wanted to be the center of attention, to be in the spotlight as he pushed his brother aside, but so he didn't have to be _here_. There was nothing but heat and mosquitoes and an old television here. There were only twelve channels. Four constantly displayed rotating footage of rings and slender fingers with French manicures while the others played Spanish soap operas.

There was no wifi, no cell service. No one delivered out here in the woods, and the closest thing resembling civilization was forty-five minutes away, the nearest mall three times that. Alfred tried to think of how long Arthur would be gone, mapped it out like a math problem.

If Arthur left the house at─ at what time? There was no dip in the bed, no indentation in the sheets when Alfred woke. But in the kitchen there had been a foil-covered plate, the simple, hardy food that had yet to go cold. Alfred ballparked it about fifteen minutes before he woke up.

So if Arthur left the house at twenty after ten, and drove to town at the speed limit─ no, not the speed limit. Never the speed limit. Arthur was slow, cautious. He was the one who set the examples in the family, held doors for strangers and never cut others off. Driving with him was like driving with a snail.

Alfred stopped for a moment to get it all organized in his head. If Arthur left the house at twenty after ten, and drove so slow it was like he was trying to force time to move backwards, how long would it take him to get from point A, to point B, back to point A?

Forever, was Alfred's definitive answer. There was no telling how long he'd take shopping for groceries, comparing prices and deals, worrying over them until he picked one at random. And maybe he'd rent a few movies for Alfred, or bring home a bag of burgers and fries.

Alfred kept happy thoughts of fast food running through his head as he soldiered through the day. He stood around in the shower until the water ran cold, loped about the house in nothing but a towel, a water trail marking where he'd been. He stared at tiny birds that flitted about outside the windows, watched full green leaves waved in the wind.

Mainly, he stayed out of his room. Not that he thought the thing would be back of course. It was impossible. Nightmares didn't live on into the day, didn't hide in cracks and corners like spiders, waiting until you were ready to sleep to make themselves unforgiveably obvious.

He used Arthur's deodorant, tried on his clothes. They were just tight enough that they cut into the softness of his stomach, made sitting a painful task. Alfred wandered into the garage on a hunt for something that would fit. He found old boxes with moth eaten shirts and scarves that smelled like his mother.

There was a box filled with clothes from his grunge days, a time when he thought flannel was flattering, tattered, acid wash jeans the epitome of style. He'd even stopped shaving, but the easy stubble that came to most never appeared, instead only a pitiful peach fuzz manifesting itself on his upper lip.

The clothes would have to do. And maybe it wouldn't be so bad, maybe he'd look like nothing more than a homely lumberjack. And it wasn't like there was anyone else around to see him.

Alfred ventured outside when the sun─ and his boredom─ was at an all time high. He walked with one hand shielding his eyes, trudging through dried grass. He expected to find something new, exciting, expecting that the area wasn't as terribly bleak as he remembered it.

But it was. There was no Indian burial ground, no rundown, spooky house to explore. There was a wood mouse, a plain brown snake, and one broken beer bottle. He lay under a shady willow tree when the heat proved too much, closing his eyes and listening to the rustle of critters. He hadn't meant to sleep, but the grass beneath him was soft, the chirp of crickets a fine lullaby.

He woke with a start, half-remembered dreams swirling through his mind, nothing but remnants, impressions of feeling. The sun was low and hazy, the clouds around it a fiery orange. There was cotton in Alfred's mind and mouth, his joints stiff and aching.

Alfred propped himself up on his elbows, neck popping and cracking as he looked about. There had been a second at the very end of his dream, a moment in which there was the snap of twigs and leaves underfoot. It was too clear and crisp to be something created by his subconscious.

"Arthur?" Alfred asked, voice hoarse and groggy.

There was no answer. Alfred hauled himself to his feet, swiping the sleepy dust from his eyes as he started home. There was a deep hunger in his stomach, a dryness in his throat that screamed to be sated, and he pushed himself all the harder for it.

Arthur would be home by now, maybe cooking away in the kitchen, or warming some fries in the microwave. Maybe he'd have brought home some soda, had already poured Alfred a glass full with a handful of ice cubes tinkling away on top as they bumped against one another.

He'd probably picked up some movies too, already had one ready to play once Alfred got home. Alfred's gentle lope turned into a gallop as he neared the house, a certain elation already stirring at the thought of sugary drinks and food and good movies. And there was Arthur's car, all prim and perfectly parked and─ no.

It wasn't there at all.

Alfred stopped where the car should have been, circled it like an audience member trying to figure out a magician's secret. There was supposed to be a car. Definitely a car, right in this very spot. He put his hand out, swiped through the air as though he'd find it hiding beneath a veil.

When there was nothing to see, nothing to touch, he jogged to the front door and pushed his way in. Everything was as he left it, from the dirty plate in the sink to kitchen light he'd left on. The only change was the flickering red light of the answering machine.

Alfred pressed the play button as he toed off his shoes. Over the speaker came the crackle of his parents' voices. They said they hoped Alfred and Arthur were getting along, that they were making the best of their civilization-free week and that they were missed dearly. Mattie started to say something, but the message cut off before he got anything distinctive out.

The second message was from Arthur. He muttered on about the car, how the engine had overheated, how the mechanic wouldn't be out until tomorrow morning. Alfred didn't catch much after that. He was going to be alone until morning at the earliest, in a big, empty cabin. With no one around.

"You owe me," Alfred said as he deleted the messages. "You owe me so bad."

There was a light tapping on the door as Alfred stared at the answering machine. It was salvation. It was the pizza man who Arthur had convinced to come all the way up here, or a neighbor from down the road who had been called to check up on him. He'd opened it with a smile, ready to greet whoever it was.

The only thing that met him was a cool gust of wind. It would have been welcomed on such a warm evening if it hadn't blown right through him, rattled through his bones and left him with a hollowness in his chest. He chalked the sound up to his imagination, to his yearning for company and contact.

That night Alfred turned all the lights in the house on. He banged around as he cooked, was loud and obnoxious and shattered the silence. Each TV he turned to the Spanish soaps, let the voices fill the house. He sang little diddies to himself, filled in the words with nonsensical phrases when he forgot the appropriate lyrics.

But then the hour was late and the soap operas gave way to blaring infomercials, and nothing could chase away the quiet. No matter how loud he set the volume, it found a way to sink down. The light bulb in the hallway burnt out, and the floorboards creaked more than usual.

Alfred told himself that the house was settling, contracting and expanding from the change in temperature. The TVs were old, faulty, bordering on busted. The light bulbs were bound to be old as sin, used for a week once a year and left to sit and collect dust.

There was a darkness in the house though, a shadow that slept in the crevices, sat in the corner of Alfred's vision, flitted away when he turned. He convinced himself his imagination was running away with him, taking him on a wild ride he had no intention of enjoying.

He checked all the locks three times that night, save for the window in his room. He hadn't yet gotten the nerve to venture back in. Not that it mattered, the window was definitely, most assuredly, super locked. Even if the light bulbs were dying and the TVs fading fast, locks didn't pop themselves open from age.

When the hour was late Alfred crawled into Arthur's bed. It wasn't like Arthur was going to use it. He was probably renting a little room for the night in town, had a TV with decent shows and could actually call out on his cell phone. Maybe he even got room service.

But Alfred got nothing but the sound of the cicadas and the low, lazy hoot of the occasional owl. He almost slept with the lights on, figured he'd be awake to turn them off before Arthur got home and could question him about it, but the moon was full and round and was light enough.

He stared at the ceiling for the first hour, making shapes with his toes and plucking at the bedspread. That nap had really done him in. He wondered if it was possible to die from boredom. It seemed pretty likely at the moment. His body would surely realize that there was no reason to keep him alive, the few thoughts in his head so stagnant as to be worthless.

His breathing would stop, his heart halt, and that would be it. His parents would feel bad, would know they shouldn't have left Alfred at the cabin. His gravemarker would say he was taken too young, had so much to look forward to, and that he would never be forgotten. People would leave flowers at his grave every day. His school would have a moment of silence for him.

Instead of an early death he was granted a sleepless night. The warmth of the evening sun faded, the temperature dropped to a comfortable chilliness. Alfred lay with one foot bare and open to the world, while the rest of him hid beneath the sheets.

By the time he almost fell asleep, the creatures of the darkness were silent. There was no wind, no shrill cry of night birds. There was only his steady, easy breathing as his eyelids fluttered. He faded in and out of a shallow sleep, waking every time to an imagined sound. He kept his glasses on.

When the cold came, he hardly noticed it. His reaction was to pull his feet under the covers and rub them together sleepily. He hiked the sheets up to his nose. It was only when he found that the cold had seeped beneath his covers that he started to wake.

He had an instinctive urge to check the window, soothed by the sight of the pane still closed. But the clouded over look of it had the opposite effect. There was no frost in July, no cold snaps in the middle of the night. There was no sense in the breath he saw streaming from his mouth when he pulled the covers down.

He thought of ghosts, of spirits and the supernatural, the cold spots in houses that could be picked up on camera, through heat-reading sensors. This was, Alfred decided, the beginning of another nightmare. Sure enough he'd look up to find the creature above him, black and fluid and frightening. As long as he didn't look up, he wouldn't see it, and it wouldn't bother him.

Alfred had to give himself a pat on the back for his excellent dream-logic. He was the one in charge, the one who called the rules. The creature would bow to his subconscious. Alfred was the king of the castle as long as he kept his eyes shut tight and tried to sleep again within his dream.

He almost had it down pat when things went wrong. He was being so good, so quiet and still that he was sure he'd win this round. But then there was something at his face, fingertips that burned like ice, skimmed along the softness of his cheek before settling on the arms of his glasses.

In a fraction of a second Alfred's hand shot up, batting away the hand. It gave way like fine snow, powdering under his touch and falling away. Alfred's eyes snapped open to reveal a fogged world, a blanket of frost coating the lenses of his glasses as surely as it coated the window pane.

He yanked his glasses off, held them in trembling fingers to his lips and breathed, rubbed, buffed away the blur. There was movement in the corner of his eyes, a moving blackness, like the shadows from the evening. And Alfred looked. He looked because it was instinctive, automatic, and he knew what it was.

The creature from his nightmare was at his bedside. It sat all la-di-da, calm and cool, nothing more than a parent visiting their child before bed. The mattress sighed softly under the added weight, dipped and rose as it balanced out. Alfred barely managed to get his glasses back on, nearly jabbing himself in the eye twice.

The eyes of the creature held him, that muted purple that thrummed, a low steady burn. They weren't purple like asters or amethysts or plums. There were the deep purple of fresh bruises, an aching pain showing through them.

Alfred watched as the fluid blackness that surrounded the creature faded, pale skin and hair showing where before there had been nothing but a featureless, dark canvas. He was ageless in the way that inhabitants of dreams were, with a defined nose and high, lovely cheekbones. But for all his beauty, his expression held nothing but melancholy.

The shadow he had been manifested as a scarf that hung around his neck, lively and twitching, writhing like a black mamba.

"Get the fuck out," Alfred said.

The creature's eyes widened, silvered brows rising. He smiled a toothless smile, long and thin and twisted at the ends. His lips were blue and faded, like a drowned man's. He reached out a hand, Alfred flinching and shifting away, crawling back in bed until he was hunched against the headboard. He didn't want the frozen touch of the man, to be bitten by frost at the merest glance of his fingertips.

"Why would I leave?" the creature asked, and his voice was from so far away, from a tale of someone who was half man and half myth and hailed from Transylvania.

"Because this is my dream," Alfred snapped. "This is my dream and I am calling the shots and you need to leave right this instant."

"But you let me in, you opened the door when I knocked."

The creature edged closer, his hand again reaching for Alfred, who held a hand up to cover his face. The creature's fingers wrapped around his forearm. There were cool and firm, without the terrible chill of before. Where before they had made Alfred think of frostbitten skin, now they called up the relief of the unused side of a pillow.

When the creature pulled him forearm away, Alfred's eyes were drawn to its flesh. It was a snowy white compared to the sun-kissed bronze of his arms. His skin seemed almost translucent, veins running beneath the surface, vivid and strong as they flowed up his wrist.

"What do you want?" Alfred asked, the confidence in his voice watery, unsure of itself. Even in his own sleep he had no control of what happened anymore.

The creature edged closer, its free hand reaching out for Alfred's throat, fingers resting on the pulse in his neck. Alfred saw the quiet concentration in his bruised eyes, the hungry flicker that danced. Alfred wanted to shout, to lash out and slap the hand away, to wrench himself free and escape. Or even to attack the creature in return, the claw at its face until it let him free.

Those were the two reactions to a frightening situation, fight or flight. No one mention the third reaction, the one where you sat around like a stupid deer in the headlights who could do nothing but stare and wait and worry.

"What are you?" Alfred asked as the creature brought his wrist to its mouth, lips resting against the veins that congregated below the base of his palm.

"A name changes nothing about me," the creature said, his breath numbing Alfred's skin as it brushed over it.

Alfred wrenched his wrist away, cradling it to his chest, doing his best to massage feeling back into it as he huddled himself further into the corner of his bed and wall. "Don't touch me," he hissed. "Whatever you are, I don't want any part of it."

"And you think I wanted this?"

"Look, whatever you're sellin', I'm not buyin'. And beat it, will you?"

"So casual," the creature laughed, and it was the sound of a howling winter storm. "Nearly fearless. _Nearly_."

"Look, buddy, do you need me to show you the door or d'you think you can manage it by yourself?"

"Such a smart mouth, and yet you hide from me. Or attempt to, at least. Your little spot will not serve you well."

"I'm not hiding from anyone. I think it's pretty normal to not be super enthusiastic about a monster-thingy in your room."

"Let me promise you one thing," the creature said, long nails stroking along Alfred's jawline, tilting his head to the side and exposing his neck, "I will be the gentlest monster you ever meet."

"Do gentle monsters have names?" Alfred asked, his heart set aflutter as goosebumps prickled along his arms.

"They do, Alfred," the monster said. "And mine is Ivan."

What Ivan said next, Alfred couldn't decipher. He thought it to be a foreign language, something beautiful and natural that settled in the air, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't lock on to the syllables and words. They blended seamlessly together, rolled like waves, one against the other, melting into a single ocean.

By the time Alfred tore himself a way from the noise, he found himself on his back. Ivan had moved from the side of the bed, his knees at either side of Alfred's hips, his weight keeping Alfred from sitting up. He leaned over, one hand supporting his as the other snaked around Alfred's neck. The nails tickled against the nape, fingers kissing along the skin before twining themselves in Alfred's hair.

"You have three seconds to get off me before I put you in the sleepiest sleeper hold you've ever seen."

"Shh," Ivan whispered, a smile in his voice.

His words were cool and soft against Alfred's neck before it startled to tingle and numb. It made Alfred think of being at the dentist, how the novocaine deadened his mouth to pain, made the drill of the bit fade away into nothing but pressure. Alfred lifted a hand to his neck, squeezing it between his chest and Ivan's.

Teeth grazed along his fingers, not biting or nipping, merely brushing. Alfred jerked his hand back, felt the skin catch and break on a tooth, the skim of Ivan's breath against the cut. He waited for the sting to come with all the fury of a paper cut, but it never came.

The pain instead appeared in his neck, nothing but a firm, heavy sensation at first, but then a vicious piercing. His chest arched upwards against Ivan as he gasped, eyes rolling. His eyelids fluttered weakly as he tried to steady himself, a sharp ache shooting down his back as his body gave a twisted jerk.

Ivan's voice was at his ear then, all hushed and kind tones as he said, "The worst is over, hold still for me."

Alfred shook his head, a loose, rubbery movement with the half-feeling in his neck."You said you'd be gentle," he argued, raspy and weak.

Ivan raised his head for a moment, the nails of the hand twisted in Alfred's hair scratching gently, almost affectionately. He smiled, showing Alfred his teeth for the first time. They were neat and uniform, a little on the pale side but otherwise unremarkable, save for his canines.

His canines weren't blunted like they should have been, weren't nice and ordinary and nothing to pay much attention to. They were long, slender, with icicle-like points that reminded Alfred of half-eaten candy canes he'd pricked himself with. He wondered, in a place that seemed too far away from his body, from a place that existed outside of himself, if the pink tinge on Ivan's teeth was a figment of his imagination.

Before he could ask**,** his thoughts were dimmed by a flush of warmth through his body. The sensation seeped from his neck, curled down his spine and settled in his legs. It stretched out to the tips of his fingers and pooled in his belly.

It wasn't happiness, or elation, or something that could be labeled as feel-good. It was contentment, it was the lack of fear. There was still a dull throb in the neck, the surface of it without feeling, but a steady ache still settled in the soft tissues. But it was okay, because the nervous, clammy sweat on his brow eased, and the trembling in his body faded.

Alfred didn't complain or whine or fight when Ivan lowered his head again. He didn't squirm or buck as a thin, watery rivulet streamed down his neck. He didn't even mind the wet lapping noises that reached his ears, instead concentrating on the pleasant sighs—he thought they might be his, but he was too far gone to tell.

Instead, Alfred let himself relax, let his muscles loosen and his eyes flutter shut. He found he didn't care anymore, not of the man in his bed or the monster it was. Soon it'd be dawn, warm sunlight streaming into the room, Arthur would be home and Alfred would be happy. But until that time came, he'd give himself up to the nightmare.

* * *

><p>AN: Sorry for making you wait! Work was being all kinds of hectic and I've been jumping from store to store, so by the time I get home I'm always wiped. But I have today off so I'm finally able to upload it now. I hope everyone who read it found some enjoyment.

While at first this was a two part story, I'm thinking of writing an epilogue for it down the road. Nothing is super solid in my head right now, so I'd be more than happy to hear what you think would happen in the future for this story. Thank you in advance for your reviews and suggestions!


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